The Lost World: Jurassic Park

[MerelyAFan]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/films/jurassicparklw.php

Oh boy, given Chuck's intense hatred of both stupidity masking itself as scientific reason and supposed heroes acting like self righteous hypocrites, I sense this review is gonna be blood bath.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Hmm. Only point on his checklist I didn't pass was getting hypertension with foul language. Hoping for the best.

[clearspira]

I realise that Doug Walker's name is probably mud around here but I have to say he made one of the funniest reviews I have ever seen of this film. Particularly the part where Wonder Girl here took out a raptor with gymnastics and it did what appears to be a double take. The last time I saw something like that was in Moonraker with the pigeon that shakes it head as Bond drives past on his Q-gondola.

The Lost World is bad for many reasons but two things killed it: 1) the ''heroes'' here have a body count higher than the villains and never acknowledge it and 2) Sam Neill and Richard Attenbrough were the stars of JP1; Jeff Goldblum on the other hand was actually an incredibly minor character who had a level of importance only slightly above that lawyer who got eaten on the toilet. I genuinely think that you could completely remove him from the film and the only thing we would lose is a couple of jokes. You cannot say that about the kids, or Samuel Jackson, or Dennis Nedry (whoever the hell plays him), or arguably even the hunter; but you can about Jeff Goldblum.

Tl;Dr, this is like making a new Star Trek film starring Voyager's Extra Man.

[MerelyAFan]

I realise that Doug Walker's name is probably mud around here but I have to say he made one of the funniest reviews I have ever seen of this film. Particularly the part where Wonder Girl here took out a raptor with gymnastics and it did what appears to be a double take. The last time I saw something like that was in Moonraker with the pigeon that shakes it head as Bond drives past on his Q-gondola.

The Lost World is bad for many reasons but two things killed it: 1) the ''heroes'' here have a body count higher than the villains and never acknowledge it and 2) Sam Neill and Richard Attenbrough were the stars of JP1; Jeff Goldblum on the other hand was actually an incredibly minor character who had a level of importance only slightly above that lawyer who got eaten on the toilet. I genuinely think that you could completely remove him from the film and the only thing we would lose is a couple of jokes. You cannot say that about the kids, or Samuel Jackson, or Dennis Nedry (whoever the hell plays him), or arguably even the hunter; but you can about Jeff Goldblum.

Tl;Dr, this is like making a new Star Trek film starring Voyager's Extra Man.

I would say that Malcolm is a bit more vital than and acts an interesting counterbalance against the likes of Grant, Sattler, and Hammond in JP. But that's just it, he's a contrasting personality versus relatively well formed characters in the first film. Making him the lead would be tricky enough, and doing so with people so poorly written as Nick and Sarah in Lost World makes that problem even worse. And even in that respect TLW isn't there to really expand Malcolm's character as much as it is to having a familiar face and rely on Goldblum's charm to carry a very weak story (which try as he might he doesn't succeed at).

[rickgriffin]

I have absolutely no issue with expressing vitriol toward this film. I know "angry reviewer" has been reviled since at least 2015 when it started to become passe, but I've always been of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with vitriolic reviews PER SE... just that it kept being applied to media that absolutely did not deserve the treatment, simply because the reviewer wasn't creative enough to provide commentary without tearing it down or nitpicking, and as a result, ended up misrepresenting the media that they were supposedly giving their honest opinions about.

Plenty of media CAN deserve it, though. Case in point: The Lost World is basically a textbook example of the film trying its hardest to prove a thesis through its overtly stated intentions, but the entire subtext of the film suggests the exact opposite. It's almost amazing how horribly it fails while believing it succeeds the whole way through. There's nothing wrong with being upset at the smugness of something that represents the investment of more monetary resources than you or I will ever see in our lives, so long as the criticisms are still valid and on point.

They're all valid criticisms! So it doesn't really matter if the review is stereotypical angry reviewer if it's literally all accurate. There's no digging for problems here: basically all of The Lost World's flaws are present and there for anyone to see, it's just a matter of weaving this all together into WHY this product as a whole is just plain insulting.

[FaxModem1]

I hated this film when I first saw it in theaters, as it was stupid, and I was the age of those kids ruining the film for Chuck.

Nick being the actual villain of the film, and making the corporate goons look reasonable, makes me hate this film. Nick is an ecoterroist, plain and simple, and should not be considered on the good guys side. It frankly annoys me how disconnected Hollywood can be, and so they write things that make heroes into villains and vice versa.

The best thing about these films is the cool costuming and gear all the characters have.

[Philistine]

I only saw TLW once, decades ago - and that was right after the one time I read the book the film is sorta-kinda based on (well... with which it shares a title, anyway), which made for an even more disorienting experience as I kept expecting there to be similarities between the two. About all I remembered from the film was a bunch of running around and screaming, mostly in the dark, mostly for unclear reasons, and then suddenly there was a T-Rex running around San Diego FOR SOME REASON. And then apparently there were more movies, but after this one I just didn't care.

So I guess I should thank Chuck for reminding me why TLW put me off the Jurassic Park franchise, so thoroughly that I no longer even care to re-watch the first film. I guess I should thank Chuck, if only I had the heart to do so.

[Rocketboy1313]

It is tremendously disappointing that the second movie stumbled SO HARD with such an easy premise of, "What if dinosaurs, but this time in the city".

That is all they really needed. Have Malcolm find out that there was a hostile takeover of Hammond's company and that the technology has fallen into the hands of people who want to open a new park, but this time on the mainland. He tries to lead a protest and then gets kidnapped by corporate goons just as things at the park start to go insane, and then mayhem in the city.

It is easy stuff. Then the third movie gets to answer the obvious question, "where did all those dinosaurs from movie two come from?"

[clearspira]

Thinking about it, the last time I saw Chuck this mad it was in Kannazuki No Miko.

Also, I thought it would be fun to try and list how many ''heroes'' in other media have a body count as high as Nick AND is never called on it - and I didn't do very well. This is a surprisingly hard challenge which should say a lot. Here is what I came up with:

1) Captain Archer for the genocide of the Valekians.
2) Quinn Mallory in Sliders for the destruction of an entire parallel Earth.
3) Superman in Man of Steel, although Batman would later call him on it in Batman V Superman so this one only gets half credit.
4) ...

[ComHop]

The Lost World in one sentence: Mostly unlikable, self righteous idiots (the "heroes") cause massive loss of life... also there are dinosaurs.
If the girl getting attacked in the opening survived (as she does in the book), I would argue every human death was directly the result of Nick's actions, with the exception of Dieter as he seemed dense enough to end up in the same situation.